Genome of Russian wheat aphid an economically important cereal aphid.

Although the hemipterans (Aphididae) are comprised of roughly 50,000 extant insect species, only four have sequenced genomes that are publically available, namely (pea aphid), (Kissing bug), (Green peach aphid) and (Russian wheat aphid). As a significant proportion of agricultural pests are phloem feeding aphids, it is crucial for sustained global food security that a greater understanding of the genomic and molecular functioning of this family be elucidated. Recently, the genome of US biotype US2 was sequenced but its assembly only incorporated ~ 32% of produced reads and contained a surprisingly low gene count when compared to that of the model/first sequenced aphid, . To this end, we present here the genomes of two South African (Kurdjumov, Hemiptera: Aphididae) biotypes (SA1 and SAM), obtained after sequencing the genomes of the only two biotypes with documented linked genealogy. To better understand overall targets and patterns of heterozygosity, we also sequenced a pooled sample of 9 geographically separated populations (MixIX). We assembled a 399 Mb reference genome (PRJNA297165, representing 64% of the projected genome size 623 Mb) using ± 28 Gb of 101 bp paired-end HiSeq2000 reads from the biotype SAM, whilst ± 13 Gb 101 bp paired-end HiSeq2000 reads from the biotype SA1 were generated to facilitate genomic comparisons between the two biotypes. Sequencing the MixIX sample yielded ±26 Gb 50 bp paired-end SOLiD reads which facilitated SNP detection when compared to the biotype SAM assembly. Ab initio gene calling produced a total of 31,885 protein coding genes from the assembled contigs spanning ~ 399 Mb (GCA_001465515.1).